Three Mexican-American artists look at bicultural histories in Oceanside exhibit

Three Mexican-American artists will show the public what
California and American cultures look like through their eyes in an
exhibit opening Saturday at the Oceanside Museum of Art.

The experiences of artists Raul Guerrero and brothers Einar and
Jamex de la Torre will be on display in the forms of sculptures and
paintings in "Looking Back/Moving Forward: Contemporary
Mexican-American Art."

The exhibit comes at an interesting time in Mexican history.

"The year 2010 marks the bicentennial of the Mexican War of
Independence against Spanish colonial authorities and the
centennial of the Mexican Revolution, which sought to cultivate a
more democratic political government," said Danielle Susalla, the
museum's assistant director and this exhibit's curator.

The exhibit is meant to "examine cultural and historical
concepts with very personal perspectives and extremely different
mediums," according to Susalla, who met the de la Torre brothers at
Cal State Fullerton in 2007.

"They had an exhibition there. I was a graduate student in
Exhibition Design and helped install the exhibition," said
Susalla.

The de la Torre brothers use glass and other found objects to
make their sculptures. Susalla described their art as having many
layers of symbolic and cultural meaning with humorous imagery. Many
of their pieces comment on their bicultural experiences.

The brothers were born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and attended an
all-boys school, but in 1972 they moved to Dana Point. Einar was 9
and Jamex was 12 when they began attending public school in
Southern California. That presented a social and cultural shock,
Susalla said.

"It was the beginning of the multicultural lifestyle that now
inspires their art," she said.

The brothers graduated from Cal State Long Beach, both with
degrees in sculpture, and have had their art exhibited all over the
world. It has appeared in the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Wash.; the
Kanazu Museum of Art in Kanazu, Japan; the Mexican Fine Art Museum
in Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego.

Right now, the brothers travel between their home in San Diego
and their ranch in Ensenada, Mexico.

Guerrero's large and dramatic paintings are a contrast to the de
la Torres' sculptures.

"I met Raul through a collector here at Oceanside Museum of Art
this past year when the idea of this exhibition began to grow,"
said Susalla.

Guerrero's paintings reflect his personal history and his
exploration of cultural identity, said Susalla. He is interested in
exploring the cultures in the United States, Latin America and
Europe, and shows that in his work.

Guerrero, who has lived in San Diego for more than 20 years, was
born near the Mexican border and grew up in National City. He
graduated from Chouinard Art Institute in 1970 and has been
teaching oil painting at UC San Diego for the past nine years.

"His work is based heavily on conceptual thinking," said
Susalla.

His paintings, which contain Mexican, American, Southern
Californian and border symbols, can be found at the Phoenix Museum
of Art, the San Diego Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of
Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.